BAR HARBOR — Each winter, when schools in the Mount Desert Island Regional School System (MDIRSS) are preparing their budgets for the next fiscal year, they include a 10 percent increase in health insurance premiums. Then they hope the actual rate increase, which Blue Cross/Blue Shield typically announces in spring, will be smaller.

The insurance company recently notified MDIRSS officials that next year’s rate hike would be 4 percent, which means the schools will need less tax money than their budgets call for at this time.

However, the cost of heating oil is expected to be higher than previously projected, according to MDIRSS business manager Nancy Thurlow, so some of the health insurance savings might be offset.

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